By Tina L. Cheng and Alison M. Conca-Cheng, Pediatrics, August 31, 2020
COVID-19 is a recent crisis. Racism is an enduring crisis which is inflamed in the presence of other crises. The Chinese word for "crisis” is composed of two characters, one signifying "danger" and the other, "opportunity." The pandemics of COVID-19 and racism present clear danger. Our duty is to make sense of the opportunity by learning, understanding, and taking action.
In this issue of Pediatrics, Cheah et al.1 demonstrate the danger of these twin crises for Chinese American families. They surveyed parents and their children who reported a very high rate of recent racist experiences, both in-person and online. They also found a correlation with poor mental health. Like the subjects in their survey, the authors of this commentary—a Chinese academic pediatrician parent and her daughter, a third-year medical student just starting her clinical rotations—have each experienced implicit and explicit bias and the rise of sinophobia, both inside and outside the healthcare setting.
Cheah et al.’s findings are consistent with a recent Pew Research Foundation study in which four in ten Americans reported that it has become more common since COVID for people to express racist views about people who are Asian. Both Asian and Black Americans were more likely to report adverse experiences due to their race or ethnicity since the pandemic’s beginning, including observing people acting uncomfortable around them, being subjected to slurs or jokes, and fearing threats or physical attack.2 Reports of racism and physical attacks on Asians have increased markedly in the United States and worldwide.3 Their finding of a link to poor mental health should be no surprise.
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